Caring for your hair through the heat and humidity of summer is one thing, but what about when spring comes and the rain starts? Or when winter rolls in with its icy chill and gale-force winds?
Yes, looking after your hair and catering to the specific needs of the season can be a tricky art to master.
Luckily, we’ve done the hard work for you and found all the must-know hair care tips for nourishing your locks season by season.
Start with summer hair, then bookmark this page for when temperatures inevitably drop later in the year!
Summer
It might be our favorite time of year, but our hair? Not so much. Sun, sand, and seawater are a recipe for disaster and stressed-out summer tresses.
Combine all this with chlorine from the pool and constantly scraping our hair up into various buns and ponytails to beat the heat. It’s no wonder it fights back in the form of dry split ends and overly greasy roots!
But no need to panic, there is hope.
While your hair can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be too oily or too dry, with the right balance of products and a great haircare routine, you can live through summer with the shiny sun-kissed locks of your dreams.
Use lightweight Products
While winter weather calls for various oils and butters to coat the hair and regain lost moisture, summer hair should be moisturized differently.
Products with thick, heavy consistencies might offer moisturizing properties, but paired with the heat and high humidity, they’ll weigh down your hair. Greasy, coated locks won’t be far behind and your locks will end up feeling caked rather than nourished from within.
Instead, we prefer reaching for clarifying shampoos and conditioners, and lightweight serums to treat the ends. They’ll replenish all the moisture lost from dips in the ocean, swimming in chlorinated pools, and relaxing in the sunshine without suffocating each strand in the process.
All that said, we’re not suggesting you avoid oils altogether.
We especially love coconut oil-infused products this time of year. Just make sure the ones you choose have a light, non-sticky texture and include things like vitamin C, aloe vera, and if possible UV protection for the ultimate protective haircare routine for summer.
Turn Down The Temperature
With all of the beach trips, sea swimming, and, well, sweating we do in the summer, washing our hair more frequently is often inevitable. If that’s the case for you, make sure to lower the heat in your shower.
Soaring summer temperatures are already giving your hair more heat than it can handle, hot water will only upset the balance more.
That doesn’t mean you need to suds up in freezing cold water, but make sure it’s only lukewarm for washing, rinsing, and conditioning your hair instead.
Avoid Heat Tools
Oh, and that goes for heat tools too! If you can let your hair air dry in summer, we highly recommend it.
However, if that’s not for you we understand. Just do your locks a favor and turn the dial down. Most of us dial up our heat tools 20-50 degrees hotter than required for our natural hair texture anyway!
Fall
Repairing heat and chlorine damage and prepping our locks for the cold? It must be fall.
Our best hair care advice during this season?
Concentrate on readying your locks for increasingly lower temperatures and try to bring back any vibrance lost to salt water and sun.
Go For A Trim
The best way to rid your locks of damage is to keep up with regular trims.
If you haven’t been doing this and are suffering the effects of split ends and frizz, now is the time—it’ll give your hair the best chance it has to look and feel lustrous and shiny throughout the fall and even as winter creeps in.
Change The Color
Okay, so this certainly isn’t something you need to do, but if you’ve been considering coloring your hair, fall is a great time to experiment.
You’ll be washing your hair less which means less color fade, there’s no shade-altering chlorine to deal with, and you still have plenty of time before hat season to fully enjoy a brand-new hue!
Not to mention, switching up lighter shades for darker ones in the fall is always fun to do.
Maintain Your Locks
While you likely won’t need as many condition treatments as you did in summer, fall is the time to maintain healthy hair with nourishing shampoo and conditioner formulas.
Throw in fortnightly hair masks to keep your locks in great standing for winter.
Winter
With plummeting temperatures and icy cold winds, winter, like summer, can be harsh on your hair.
That calls for plenty of nourishing ingredients and more attention to conditioning your locks to retain moisture.
Wash Your Hair Less
First things first, we highly recommend not washing your hair as often in winter. As the dry, cold air draws moisture out of your strands, you’ll likely notice your tresses becoming much more brittle and harder to control.
Flyaways and static will be at an all-time high, and your ends are way more prone to breakage at this time of year. Therefore, if you continue to wash your hair at a regular rate, you could worsen the effects of the weather.
As we know, washing our hair, even with the most moisturizing shampoo and conditioner combos, washes away the natural oils. This dries out both the scalp and the strands, plus, it takes a while for those oils to come back and start working their way into our locks again.
To combat this, try forgoing one or, if you can manage it, two wash sessions per week.
Your hair will retain the natural moisture and oils that keep it strong, plus, those oils will act as a natural barrier protecting your precious tresses from the cold.
Massage Your Scalp
When you do wash your hair, give your scalp a little more TLC than usual.
Use your fingertips to massage and exfoliate, this will promote oil production and blood flow to the scalp for healthy hair growth. It’ll also prevent the sensitive skin on your head from becoming flaky in plummeting temperatures.
A simple yet always effective winter haircare tip that costs you nothing.
Make Hair Masks A Habit
Hair care in the winter is all about combating dryness. With this in mind, we highly suggest making weekly hair masks your newest hobby.
Look out for deeply nourishing ingredients that can stand up to the cold such as macadamia and avocado oil, shea butter, and glycerin.
While the oils and butter get to work soothing and rehydrating your locks, the glycerin, an ingredient that naturally binds water together to lock in moisture, will help smooth the hair cuticle for frizz-free locks.
Adding deeply nourishing, glycerin-enriched products to your routine is also one of our top tips for curly hair care in cooler climes.
Spring
Without the harsh summer sunshine or the freezing winds of winter to contend with, spring is the time we use to rejuvenate our hair.
First, think damage control following below-zero temperatures. Then, get into preparation mode for sun, salt, and sand, when summer comes around again.
Treat Your Scalp
If your scalp is feeling dry or flaky after months of back and forth between cold weather and central heating, spring is the time to get things back on track. How?
With plenty of scalp massages and oil treatments.
Just a couple of drops into the roots of your hair and a few minutes of working the product into your scalp is enough to soothe and reset your skin for healthy hair growth throughout spring.
Brush Gently
While you should never be harshly brushing your hair, it can feel extra sensitive post-winter so it’s extra important.
In spring, try using a de-tangling spray to give stressed-out winter locks a helping hand. You should also be brushing from the tips to the roots to prevent stretching and snapping wet hair.
Air Dry Your Hair
With the weather getting (a little) warmer, you can start letting your hair air dry after a shower again. Even if you only do this part of the way and then use your blowdryer to finish styling your locks, you’ll be adding less heat.
That means less damage to your hair every time you wash it. A win-win since it heals your hair more quickly, and saves you heaps of time.